Tag: elections

The Long and Repeating Republican Ultimatum then Democratic Capitulation Tango.

by Greg Snyder

I don’t get it. Republicans can’t or won’t write a budget that will get the votes it needs to pass. They don’t work with democrats. So, they write a CR instead.

This is a familiar repeating pattern. They stuff the CR with provisions to allow them to try to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security at a later date. They expect democrats to cave to the CR. The senate democrats could have stopped the CR by declaring it DOA prior to it being forwarded to the senate from the house. But Chuck Schumer did not do that. He could have stated that the poison pill CR would go nowhere and demanded that the Republicans go back and write a budget that they could send that would pass. But he did not do that. Schumer could have insisted on a budget, a fair budget, that does not make the cuts the republicans are trying to get away with making that are deeply unpopular with voters and the public in general. Senate democrats, with Chuck Schumer as their leader, say they will do all they can to protect Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security and not allow cuts to those programs. Yet they will probably vote for cloture on the CR with no effort to prevent the malware in the CR that would be a back door for the republicans attempting cuts later. Is the democratic promise to protect these social programs just a joke or are they simply too lazy or afraid to try to break the pattern of ultimatum and capitulation because its such a long-standing habit?

Is it all just meaningless rhetoric and what they think makes for good optics? Will Senate democrats ever have a leader who would be able to lead them on a journey of change that we need as a country and stop the familiar behaviors of worrying and hand wringing and actually adopt the principle to force needed changes? This stagnation and lack of courage to force necessary changes indicates to me that leadership is feeble and perhaps needs to retire and allow younger, more energetic leadership to take the reins.

It’s a very familiar repeating pattern: Republicans can’t write a budget that will pass so they write what they call “a clean CR” and stuff it with what they want as a clever way to attempt to do the real damage that they want to do at a latter date without, of course, disclosing that to their constituents or the public at large. They do this because they are cowards. But it gives them a back door and gets their job of serving their paymasters done. So, the republicans set up their ultimatum for the democrats. The choices the republicans give the democrats are: either vote for the CR to keep the government open and give them what they want which will enable them to later go back to doing the real damage, or close the government down, which would encourage Trump to use the stalemate to his advantage.

This very familiar repeating pattern of ultimatum and capitulation is very old, very dysfunctional, very unproductive, and perpetuates the stasis of governance. It sure would be nice if both parties could actually start getting things done once again. But that can’t happen until they stop playing the political/partisan game of war game they have engaged in for half a century.

Are Our Elections Truly Free and Fair?

by Greg Snyder

I am a citizen. I vote. I am a registered democrat. But I do not vote based strictly on party. Nor do I have an allegiance to party over country. I am not partisan. I do believe in inclusive, whole community-based politics based on cooperation, discussion, compromise and progressive ideas and policies that help people and improve our lives. I do believe that politics should be representative of ALL the people, not just a few. There are people who would label me as socialist or communist or woke or liberal or whatever. I am not threatened by those labels because I don’t fall prey to gaslighting and political manipulation. I’m done with them. I know these labels never honestly describe a person. Whenever these labels are used to describe anyone who has similar beliefs that are inclusive and based on representative democracy, they are an over-simplified generalization and rhetoric that is used to persuade (gaslight) the gullible, ignorant, fearful, and vulnerable in order that they believe the worst things about the person being labelled. This turns us against each other. It is very corrosive. These labels reduce the person to a cliché and oversimplify him or her and don’t really say anything at all that is true about that person. I think this applies to all the people who are accused of and attacked using this type of labelling or name calling.

I am not an expert in computer technology. I am not writing this to impugn the makers of the computers that the states use to conduct elections. I am simply asking some questions because I have questions. It is very strange indeed trying to send a message like this out into the ether without any solid chance that it will be received by anyone with the type of expertise I hope exists. My sending this message out is kind of like the messages on plaques that have been put onto some of the space crafts that have been sent on long journeys out into space. They are of strange markings, the meaning of which it is hoped will be understood by some alien races out there in space. I am writing this note with the hope that maybe it will be seen by some people who have ideas on how to restore trust and ensure transparency for those of us who have trust issues. I hope to find people with knowledge of computer technology and people who know how to implement remedies for problems in politics. But also, and more importantly, I am writing this for the people of the United States who vote with the hope that the voting systems they are using are trustworthy and are not being manipulated to cheat and skew election results. I am not proposing any conspiracy theories here. I am just asking some questions. I am not paranoid. But I do have some questions. If anyone reacts to my asking these questions with accusations that this is a political attack, they need not be so reactionary. If any of the questions I am asking are uncomfortable or objectionable, why is that? There is nothing to fear in questions if they can only serve to clarify. Clear and truthful answers only dispel distrust and refusing to answer questions or ignoring them or evading them only shows that underneath it there is the possibility of something that is wrong and may need correction.

So, after 575 words of disclosure and setting up the questions I have, I’ll ask those questions:

These questions are for people who know how election computers work, how they are programmed, and how they are made secure and how hacking them is prevented.

Can the voting machine computers be made to change or flip votes that have been entered into them?

Can changing or flipping votes be prevented? In other word, can voting machines be made so that vote changing and flipping cannot occur?

Can voting machines be reprogrammed by local officials employing their own IT experts to change or flip votes after they have been bought by a state from their manufacturer?

Is there a way to verify that votes have not been changed or flipped? Is there a permanent hard copy record of the vote that cannot be covered up, erased, or removed that can prove that a voting machine’s programming has not been or has been modified?

Is an audit done after every election to verify that there was no tampering or modification done to voting machines? Can there be a federal election law that requires that such an audit is done after every election to ensure transparency that the vote was conducted free of any modification to the voting machines as part of the certification of the election results?  

These questions are for the Secretaries of State in all the states:

Are your voting machines examined before and after each election to ensure that they have not been tampered with and are the results of those examinations archived and made available to the public?

Do you administer audits of the elections before you certify and make public the results of the elections? Are the results of your audits available to the public?

These questions are for our federal, state and local elected officials:

If they are not already in place in your state, in addition to voting in person, would you consider implementing voting by mail, expanded early voting, making provisional ballots available, automatic registration of all eligible voters through the DMV for example, and verification and auditing of voting tabulation machines before and after each election to ensure their safety and the validity and integrity of the vote?

Trump has promised that “Don’t worry. You won’t have to vote ever again” as one of his campaign promises. Yes, there are a winner and a loser in every election. But all voters should feel that they can trust that their votes will be fairly counted and have assurances that this in fact takes place. With our politics being as polarized as they are, it is very easy for regular people to have distrust for election results that do not make sense to them. If voting were made more transparent and security measures are taken to guarantee a truly free and fair election has taken place and that the entire process is entirely transparent and a matter of public record that is available publicly, it would be a great relief to voters who have some suspicions that we as voters have not been given the assurances that we need that our vote is safe and secure. A few simple fixes to our election process would help to restore some trust in the notion that we do, indeed,  truly have free and fair elections.